Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab Biography

Among the least understood of the thinkers and leaders who have shaped
the modern world is Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (c. 1702–c.
1791), the founder of the fundamentalist branch of Islamic thought and
practice known as Wahhabism.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's life and beliefs are a source of controversy,
both within Islam and in the Western non-Islamic world. Even the term
"Wahabbism" is controversial, for within Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab's own lifetime it (and its Arabic equivalents) were used
primarily by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's opponents; his followers called
themselves
Muwahiddun
or Unitarians, believers in a unity. His writings and actions are
susceptible to multiple interpretations. But it can be said that Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab was essentially a puritan—not in the contemporary sense
of that word, which now tends to refer exclusively to restrictions on
sexual activity and its depiction in cultural products, but in the
word's older sense, used by early American colonists and indicating
a return to the basic tenets of a religion, in this case Islam. Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab's influence was closely bound up with the emergence of
Saudi Arabia as a state, and his ideas continue to flourish there, a fact
of immense importance in contemporary world affairs.

Family Schooled in Conservative Tradition

The facts of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's life, transmitted to posterity
mostly by a circle of close followers, are not always clear. He was born
in 1702 or 1703 in the town of al-Uyaynah in the Najd region of the
Arabian peninsula, now in northern Saudi Arabia. His family, at least as
far back as a grandfather who was a famous judge in religious maters,
contained scholars in the conservative Hanbali tradition, one of the main
schools of legal thinking in Sunni Islam. By the time he was ten he had
memorized the Quran, and he made the required hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca
as a teenager. Soon after that he traveled to the religious center of
Medina, studying with noted religious scholars in addition to his own
father.

By that time he had already begun preaching in his hometown, and it had
become apparent that he was controversial from the start. His teachings
were based directly on the Quran itself and on the
hadith
tradition of teachings associated with the Prophet Muhammad. He rejected
the influence of local religious scholars known as
ulama
, who in turn worked to minimize his influence. He was forced to leave
al-Uyaynah, marking the first of several occasions in which he ran afoul
of powerful figures. It was at this point that he traveled to Mecca and
Medina. Among the figures with whom he studied was Muhammad Hayat
al-Sindi, a figure from the Indian subcontinent who had witnessed the
deterioration of the Mughal Empire, and who inculcated in Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab the idea that pure forms of Islam could regenerate lost
political glories.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab also studied in Basra in what is now Iraq. By this time
he was considered an erudite young scholar, and his teacher, Muhammad
al-Mujmui, allowed his own children to study with Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. In
Basra Ibn Abd al-Wahhab probably encountered scholars from the rival Shia
branch of Islam, which he denounced in one treatise. But his quarrel was
not primarily with Shia Islam, or with the mystic Sufi sect that he
sometimes denounced. Rather, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was motivated above all by
the principle of
tawhid
or montheism, a belief in one God, called Allah in Arabic. He rejected
belief in any idol, and he did not accept that any earthly object could be
associated with the divine. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab made his way back to the
Arabian peninsula, staying in his hometown and then in Al-Ahsa, and
finally moving to Huraymila, where his father had taken up residence.

In Huraymila, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab wrote the best known of his roughly 15
treatises,
Kitab al-Tawhid
, or
The Book of Monotheism
. It was at this time that he began to attract supporters in large
numbers, with two local tribes joining forces to accept him as a religious
leader. He also gained detractors in equal numbers, apparently stirring up
anger among a group of slaves with his strict fulminations against sexual
immorality. Members of this group mounted an assassination attempt against
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, but it was unsuccessful. Once more, he returned to his
hometown of al-Uyaynah.

Gained Secular Patron

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab found military protection from the area's new
ruler, Uthman ibn Hamid ibn Muammar. The alliance foreshadowed Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab's later partnership with Muhammad ibn Saud, the founder
of Saudi Arabia, and it brought Ibn Abd al-Wahhab new power and influence.
It was during this period that he undertook three controversial actions
designed to offer graphic demonstrations of his beliefs. These were
controversial in Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's own time and remain so,
providing famous images of the strict form of Islam he espoused.

The first involved a group of trees that the inhabitants of al-Uyaynah
considered sacred and invested with quasi-magical powers. Much to Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab's dismay, they would hang various items in the branches
of the trees in the hope that they would bring blessings or good luck. For
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, this was a direct violation of the
tawhid
principle that blessings could come only from God. He took direct action
to stamp out this example of popular religious belief: he and his
followers cut down the grove of sacred trees, with Ibn Abd al-Wahhab
himself taking the ax to the most venerated tree of all.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's second well-publicized move in al-Uyaynah took
aim not at popular superstition but at an icon of Islam itself: a monument
built over the tomb of Zayd ibn al-Khattab, an early associate of the
Prophet Muhammad himself. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his followers destroyed
the monument because it violated a central tenet of the
hadith
stating that Muhammad had commanded the destruction of such shrines,
because they tended to promote worship of human beings rather than the
unitary divine. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was worried about the strength of the
local population's attachment to the monument and asked ibn Muammar
for a guard of six hundred men as he destroyed it.

The third event at al-Uyaynah involved a woman who had confessed to Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab that she had committed adultery. After she repeated the act
several times, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab ordered that she be stoned to death. In
that instance he followed the advice of the local
ulama
or Islamic scholars, but in many other instances he came into conflict
with these figures. Natana J. Delong-Bas wrote in
Wahhabi Islam
that Ibn Abd al-Wahhab faced "opposition by local religious
scholars and political leaders who feared a threat to their own power
bases." His campaign to purify Sunni Islam was also in part an
attempt to confront corruption in the secular world.

Exiled from Al-Uyaynah

As a result of these events and of his growing influence, local Islamic
scholars in al-Uyaynah mounted a campaign against Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Their
allegations, which included the charge that he espoused violence against
those who did not subscribe to his interpretation of Islam, reached the
ears of the leader of the powerful local Bani Khalid tribe, who demanded
that Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's protector, Ibn Muammar, either have Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab killed or exile him from the region. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab told
Ibn Muammar that this situation represented a test of faith, but Ibn
Muammar eventually gave in and sent Ibn Abd al-Wahhab into the desert with
a pair of horsemen, who may have had instructions to kill him, but did
not.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab landed in the town of al-Diriyah, near Riyadh, and once
again his religious fervor attracted a powerful patron—this time
one who would become the most powerful Arabian ruler of all. After
preaching to small groups, he succeeded in obtaining an introduction to
Muhammad ibn Saud, the founder of the modern House of Saud that unified
the nation of Saudi Arabia and continues to rule there. In 1744 Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud formed a sort of partnership of mutual
noninterference, in which Ibn Abd al-Wahhab pledged not to impede Ibn
Saud's plans to conquer the Arabian peninsula, while the ruler
agreed to back Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's brand of Islam. The basic
outlines of the agreement persist today; although adherents of Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab's thinking are a minority within the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, the philosophy dominates Saudi life, and its more restrictive
aspects are visible in everyday affairs.

Ibn Saud conquered Riyadh over a period of 27 years and consolidated his
hold over other Arabian cities. The degree to which this campaign
represented a holy war has been debated. Sometimes Ibn Abd al-Wahhab
absented himself from Ibn Saud's more far-flung campaigns, not
opposing them but also not offering them religious legitimacy. Conflict
continued for much of the eighteenth century, not only on the battlefield
but also on the field of religious ideas, as Islamic scholars continued to
mount opposition to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. At times he directed actual warfare
against his opponents, perhaps defensive in nature. Meanwhile, the power
and wealth of the Saud family increased, especially under Ibn
Saud's son, Abd al-Aziz. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab counseled the newly
prosperous inhabitants of lands conquered by the Saud rulers to obey the
Prophet's injunction that they donate 2.5 percent of their income
to charity and to follow the strict tenets of his teaching, but he was
disturbed by the growing atmosphere of luxury that surrounded him.

Finally, after the conquest of Riyadh in 1773, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab withdrew
from public life. He even gave up the title of imam, or prayer leader,
devoting his last years to prayer, reflection, teaching, and the study of
religious texts. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab died in 1791 or 1792, just as the power
of the House of Saud was reaching its long zenith. Controversy over his
legacy has persisted to the present time. Some have alleged that his
strict interpretation of Islam has motivated terrorist activities
generally and has specifically formed the basis for the militant Islam of
terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, a Saudi follower of Wahhabism.
During his own lifetime, however, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab favored debate and
religious instruction over violent campaigns as methods of persuasion, and
the proposed link between bin Laden and Wahhab's thought has
encountered strenuous objections.